Wish bright
by planet p
Summary: AU; a companion piece to Falling star, a wish.


She remembers, she can _remember_ thinking, _You just don't see this type of thing outside of fiction writing, usually._

Fair enough: it's… it's what!

Baffled, she doesn't even know.

A glimmer of light, of stars exploding. The horror of war, of brief flashes of pain, of uncertainty in which you wonder, _Who was it this time? Who will it be next time?_ The glow like the glow of a heart in love, the glow that shows in a lover's eyes, in the colouring of their cheeks, their lips.

_I'm guessing_, she thinks. _I've never known that fear, I've never been in love; I've never felt the sway of emotion like the world tilting, a tide rushing into land; you hold my hand, I'll hold yours; your heart breaking from the inside out; the tear in your soul when you lose a loved one, how it grows by leaps and bounds in days, or sometimes seconds._

_Nothing_, she thinks.

There's a feeling in her chest, like being crushed alive.

Oh, how she wants to, though! How she wants to feel it all! Just all of it!

With sure steps, uncertain only from the inside, she furthers her progress into the clearing. The light isn't steady, she notices, it wavers… well, no, it's more like- _That's it! It's like a heartbeat! Thump, thump; thump, thump!_

_Wish I may, wish I might, wish I do,_

_Wish for the wish I wish tonight, wish with all my heart and soul, wish it true._

The incantation is only heard in her mind, resounding there in the empty corridors; her lips are as unmoving as great, cold pillars, long destroyed by pillages to another's way of life, another's culture, but remembered in our souls. _Once…_

"I wish," she whispers in a voice that's barely a voice at all, as the falling stars hovers above the clearing she stands in, a tiny, insignificant human figure amongst the masses of trees, _for someone to love, and someone to love me in return._

Her wish goes unvoiced, like the spell by which she'd summoned the star's powers.

Her skin is bright in the light of the fallen star. "Go well," she breathes. She turns and leaves; one must leave magical things to the magical realms; the eyes of people do not haunt that realm.

She's been reading too much again, she thinks, as she stumbles from the forest's edge, she's been thinking too much. She sees buildings move into sight up ahead, like soldiers marching to the tune of her loveless heart: my home, everything I've ever known.

It's hard to believe that the falling star should wish to visit this place; as she moves forward, toward the constructs that form a part of her cold heart, she is no longer sure if it was real or just a wishful fancy.

She won't look – she won't!

She tosses back a brief glance into the forest's dark depths. It's as dark as it ever has been. She can see no far-off glow; no sign of the falling star.

"A late night walk to clear your mind."

The voice startles her, its mocking edge is real; she wheels around.

"From where I'm standing," she replies, though she's not really sure that it had been a question, "my mind is very clear."

Kyle smiles.

They're the same, but not really; not at all. He doesn't know this, besides. She doesn't know why she's thinking it, even.

Her sister will be waiting; though they don't share quarters, she always seems to know when she isn't in hers, asleep. There's probably some sense to it, far enough out into the reaches of unknowable space; she is the older twin.

She sidesteps Kyle, almost brushing by him as she passes; she suppresses the flinch: she doesn't _like_ him. "A pleasant evening to you, sir."

_Courtesy is everything_, she can remember her mother once telling her, as a child; she never did have to tell her sister such things, though they are identical in every way but one: they are two separate souls.

His response holds the same mocking as the voice that had first startled her from her thoughts, "And to you."

She doesn't leave it time to get to her; she hurries towards her familiar, safe heart: home. Home, as bright and crushing as love; as stifling, and falsely warm, falsely bright. It's the only love she's known, the only home; she has no way of knowing if it's true or not, but she _needs_ to believe it is.

Her strides pick up in speed: home. Fancy be gone; _falling stars, indeed!_

* * *

**Wish bright** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.


End file.
